Internet Miscellany: This is Not An April Fool’s Post

Apparently, the easiest way to guarantee you can’t think of a damn thing to blog about is to tell yourself you’re going to participate in Blog Every Day April, which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s Wednesday, see, which means this week’s paper is done, which means my brain is fried. So it must be time for that old favorite, Internet Miscellany! Get your clickin’ fingers ready!

â€¢ Apparently, the thing to joke about for this April Fool’s Day (Fools’ Day? Are we all fools together, or singularly?) is Twitter. At least two papers pretended they were going to Twitter-only. LiveJournal pretended it would automatically cut off each post at 140 characters. The jokes aren’t the most original, but put together, they make for an interesting illustration of Twitter’s current place in the cultural hivemind. (On a different topic, NPR’s amused report about The Economist opening Econoland made me laugh, but I hadn’t had coffee yet, so everything was funny.)

My personal favorite annual April Fool’s event is the addition of something goofy to the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab lineup. Black Phoenix, for the uninitiated, is the creator of many, many, many addictive scents (I refuse to call them perfumes, for they do not contain the ingredients that make me cough and wrinkle my nose, like most commercial perfumes do). (Also, stop me if I’ve told you this before.) BPAL scents are particularly intriguing to me because many of them are based on stories, on Shakespeare or myths or legends â€”Â or on books by Neil Gaiman (the Gaiman scents are extra super awesome because they benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund). Or they’re based on places, both real and imagined. Or paintings. Or, in the case of today’s humorous holiday, velvet paintings. Last year’s April Fool’s scents were tiki-themed; the year before, they were based on various dogs playing poker paintings. Don’t you want to smell like a Velvet Cthulu? Or a Velvet Unicorn? And if not, why not?

â€¢ This guy built Minas Tirith out of matchsticks. I can’t even focus on a single game of Scrabble, some days. His attention span is clearly worthy of study.

â€¢ Writing about Monsters vs. Aliens this week reminded me of this smart blog post about Pixar’s gender problem. The post is from last June, when WALL-E was released, but it’s still getting new comments. Like the post’s author, I love a good Pixar flick, but sometimes their gender weirdness is truly strange. I will never understand, for example, why every rat in Ratatouille was male. Yes, I’m complaining about the absence of female rats. It’s a wacky world we live in.

â€¢ “Obama Depressed, Distant Since ‘Battlestar Galactica’ Series Finale.” In classic Onion fashion, this piece manages to be a pretty sharp critique of said finale while also being worthy of a hearty LOL. Honest to the gods of Kobol, I’m still stewing over the finale â€” and amassing a hearty pile of links I want to talk about when I finally post about it. Just one more viewing of “Daybreak, Part 1” and I’ll probably be able to form a post more eloquent than, “OK, so I cried. But I also ranted.”

â€¢ Over at Pitchfork, the unstoppable, exceptional Amanda Fucking Palmer talks about why she wants her record label to drop her. It’s a fascinating and specific look at an industry in at least at much turmoil as, oh, say, the newspaper industry? I think I’ve heard something about that…

A Note From the Publisher

Dear Readers,

The last two years have been some of the hardest in Eugene Weekly’s 43 years. There were moments when keeping the paper alive felt uncertain. And yet, here we are — still publishing, still investigating, still showing up every week.

That’s because of you!

Not just because of financial support (though that matters enormously), but because of the emails, notes, conversations, encouragement and ideas you shared along the way. You reminded us why this paper exists and who it’s for.

Listening to readers has always been at the heart of Eugene Weekly. This year, that meant launching our popular weekly Activist Alert column, after many of you told us there was no single, reliable place to find information about rallies, meetings and ways to get involved. You asked. We responded.

We’ve also continued to deepen the coverage that sets Eugene Weekly apart, including our in-depth reporting on local real estate development through Bricks & Mortar — digging into what’s being built, who’s behind it and how those decisions shape our community.

And, of course, we’ve continued to bring you the stories and features many of you depend on: investigations and local government reporting, arts and culture coverage, sudoku and crossword puzzles, Savage Love, and our extensive community events calendar. We feature award-winning stories by University of Oregon student reporters getting real world journalism experience. All free. In print and online.

None of this happens by accident. It happens because readers step up and say: this matters.

As we head into a new year, please consider supporting Eugene Weekly if you’re able. Every dollar helps keep us digging, questioning, celebrating — and yes, occasionally annoying exactly the right people. We consider that a public service.

Thank you for standing with us!